


What a Cool Demon, Amirite?

by MaxTheWaxBoy



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved
Genre: Demon! Shane, M/M, Not even tho, Oh oh oh, Protective Shane Madej, Slow Burn, also Ryan has a dog idk if he does irl, hell yeah, i waited so long to type that lmao, uhh Non-descipt dmeons, who tryna play but Shane is taking no shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 01:36:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14606322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaxTheWaxBoy/pseuds/MaxTheWaxBoy
Summary: "“But,” Ryan proposed, smiling, “what if it’s a cool demon?”Ryan had started laughing, his brother joining him.“I mean,” he had said, “if you wanna talk to it, you do whatever Ryan.”Ryan had unconsciously puffed his (drunk) chest, “I’ma do it.”And then, he had actually done it, although with much different circumstances than he could ever have expected."Ryan has a dog, a demon, and a close friend, and just maybe a few of those things are related.





	1. Tropical Beginings

Ryan had been noticing things about his home. Or more specifically, things that weren’t in his home suddenly being there. Things he had jokingly said he wanted. Things he didn’t exactly say he wanted. 

But he lived alone.

And Ryan, an adult, after his Queen Mary experience, immediately jumped to supernatural causes.

First, it had been a fucking paperclip.

Before heading into work, Ryan had grabbed a normal silver paperclip and jokingly said, “Man I wish we had some paperclip diversity, like purple and shit.” When he got home and had finally gotten settled, there was a purple paperclip on his desk where there had not been one before.

The next few times, it had been clothing hangers that just showed up.

Ryan would be putting away laundry, like a normal person, and on three occasions when he was close to running out of hangers, one would just appear. One time, he counted how many he had—32—and then next time he did laundry, he counted again—33.

And then, he had paused one morning, glanced at his dog, and then turned to his “empty” living room. “Bye, I’ll be home around 6…PM,” and then, he had left.

When he did indeed get home around 6:45, he found a pack of tropical starbursts on his kitchen table, and had smiled like some fucking goof.

It was a cool demon.

And Ryan had to talk to it.

 

Ryan and a few friends, including his brother, went out drinking, as Ryan knew he had to be far from sober if he didn’t want to have a stroke when he tried to contact this demon. And yes he knows it’s a demon because he asked it to knock three times and it did. 

He had some dumb drunk conversation with his brother, grabbed a few things from the local pharmacy, and headed home.

When he stepped inside the darkened flat, something seemed…worried. Anxious. But it certainly wasn’t him. He had entirely forgotten why he would be anxious in the first place. Wait, what was he supposed to do again?

Ryan was in fact almost like a rag doll, turning on the lights and the TV as he changed into some PJs and settled onto the couch with his dog. The room seemed to settle at that, and Ryan smiled, turning on some mindless binge show on Netflix and eventually falling asleep.

When he woke up the next morning, there was a blanket thrown hastily on his shoulders, a glass of water on the coffee table. He smiled, thanking the demon he was now ok with talking to and getting ready for work. 

 

And then Shane had showed up.

He was tall, relatively hilarious, creative, and strikingly familiar. Did Ryan mention quite attractive as well? Well yeah, that.

They had become friends rather quickly and then started Unsolved together, and that’s when things got weird. 

The supernatural episodes always creeped him the most, obviously. The demon in his house? Cool, welcome, considered a friend. All the others? Oh Hell no. 

Shane always blew it off, and Ryan had, on multiple occasions, almost used his at-home demon as evidence of the supernatural. And one day, he did, just to see how Shane would play it off. Maybe he’d claim Ryan was had schizophrenia, given how far he’d reach. 

“Ok, but I have some real, personal evidence that can’t be denied,” Ryan had started in their recording booth, turning away from the footage.   
“Shoot, short stuff,” Shane responded, idly leaning back and sipping some coffee.

“Well, things have been appearing in my home, first it was a paperclip, then some hangers, and then I woke up with a blanket on me after a night of drinking,” Ryan explained, stopping himself from smiling at the memories, “it left starbursts for me once.”

Shane had frozen after the first few words, before giving a tight response, “Seems like a cool thing, don’t know why you hate all other supernatural things so much.”  
“B-because the other ones are hostile! My demon is cool, h-he’s a chill guy,” Ryan had joked, and froze at the lack of response. Shane was staring at him, transfixed since the word ‘my’.

“Have you talked to this “cool demon” then?” Shane asked, still rigid and occasionally sipping his coffee.

“Well, no,” now that he mentions it, Ryan feels a bit guilty for at least not thanking it all the other times it gave him shit. 

Shane finally chuckled, but it was stiff, and Ryan was beginning to feel both suspicious and awkward, “You should, then you’d have a demon on your back, maybe then you’d be less of a walking panic attack when we do these episodes.”

“Alright, fine, I’ll even record it for evidence,” Ryan huffed, trying to make the air lighter as they finished looking over footage together.

And so, that night, Ryan talked to it.


	2. 3D Middles

That night, Ryan sat in his living room, phone recording in one hand, and tried his hardest not to have a heart attack as he spoke.

“U-Um, wow ok, hi?” he greeted hesitantly. “Oh, I‘m talking to the demon that gave me starbursts by the way, sorry everyone else,” at that, there were multiple chittering sounds, bordering laughter. Ryan smiled. 

“Cool, cool, you’re here, great, uh,” he paused, looking around the dimly lit room, “can I ask your name? Its cool if you don’t wanna, no pressure.”

Not a second after he said that, there was more chittering and then, the notepad and pen on his coffee table started moving, spelling a name.

“Made? Wait no, Madej? Wow, so Shane is actually a fucking demon,” Ryan joked, and expected to hear the chittering, but instead got silence.

“Sorry, not funny? Should I not mention other people during this? What about the hobo who keeps asking me, and I quote, “Who the fucking hell is Abraham Lincoln?””

He got a few chitters for that, and smiled again. Quickly though, he remembered he hadn’t told Madej about his phone.

“Oh shit- Okay, uh, Madej? I have my phone recording, that cool?” he paused, before starting again quickly, “Hey how about one knock for yes and two for no? If that’s not to cliché for your taste.”

The pen scribbled the word “fine” and Ryan asked about the phone again.

“Right, so phone; cool?” he got a knock. At this point, he had set his phone down after recording the demon scribbling its name and such, now that everything would be auditory. But, then remembered Shane, and picked it back up to prove he wasn’t the one knocking.

“Ok, so just for evidence, you are a demon?”

One knock.

“And I know you’re really chill, but for evidence, you don’t wanna kill me, yeah?”

Some chitters and a knock, and Ryan was smiling again. 

“Great, you’re great, awesome, you think this will be enough for Shane?”

The pen scribbled again. “What’s he like?”

“Oh Shane? God, ok this guy could probably be thrown against a wall and have his arms broken by a ghost and say it was muscle spasms,” both of them giggled at that. “Seriously, one time, we were at this asylum and we threw a ball, since there were rumors of a ghost, and it landed under my name, and he was just like, “Eh, coincidence” even though it had to turn down a fucking hallway to do that!” they both laughed, the demon’s version of laughing being louder chitters, almost chirps in a way.

Ryan checked the time, and his smile fell slightly, “Ok, one more quick question before I go to bed, ok?”

A knock.

“Great, are you tethered to my house, or can you like follow me? Or leave or whatever.”

A pause and then a knock, before the pen scribbled again.

“I’ll keep you safe, Ryan.”

Ryan’s heart stopped at the use of his name before the rest of the sentence registered.

He smiled, full on grinned like some idiot and thanked it, finally shutting off his phone and getting ready for bed, with one last goodnight, before falling asleep. 

The next morning, he had talked with Madej while he made coffee, before walking his dog and then heading for work, saying goodbye to the both of them.

Ryan, more excited than he had ever been after seeing the footage was still there and intact, practically ran into work and over to his desk to wait for Shane to get there. Not half an hour later, and Shane was making his way over, sipping some more coffee.

“Hey Ryan,” he greeted, setting down his bag and coffee, before sitting down.

“Morning Shane,” Ryan greeted back, turning to fully face the man, “guess what?”  
Shane hummed, now turning to face him as well.

“I got evidence,” he said in a sing-song voice, pulling out his phone and pulling up the footage, before shoving it in Shane’s hands along with some headphones.  
Shane paused, raising one eyebrow, before shrugging and listening to the video. 

Ryan watched in absolute delight as Shane’s face morphed from unexpecting, to stiff, almost surprised. By the end, he was handing the phone back over slowly, wide-eyed. 

“So?” Ryan inquired as he casually pulled out his laptop and went to check through his emails. Shane was still stiff, mumbling something under his breath.

“What was that Made- oh wait that’s my demon. Speaking of which, isn’t that kinda funny?” Ryan joked, giggling.

Shane snapped out of his blank stare to chuckle a bit, “Oh yeah Ryan, you caught me, I’m a demon.”

Ryan hummed, quickly remembering they had to head out for another supernatural episode soon, “Oh hey, guess we’ll find out, we’re heading to this place nearby, not very well known, but its called the Demon House by the locals.”

Shane full on laughed at that, “The demon house? Who would name it- that’s so cliché!”

“I know, I know, but I’m feeling brave with a demon on my back, so I figured why not do a simple second demon for our second season,” they were both laughing now, Ryan realizing that Shane’s laughter sounded like his demon’s in a weird way.

“Alright, when are we heading out?” Shane asked, back to sipping his coffee and doing something on his computer. 

“Oh,” Ryan set down his own coffee and pulled up his schedule, “around 3, and it’s going to be mostly us with our go-pros and tripods, our full camera crew roster is a bit busy with a larger Buzzfeed project, but we’ll have Matt and Adam.” 

“Sounds fine,” Shane hummed, before snapping over to Ryan, slight concern in his eyes, “wait, are we staying the night?” 

Ryan thought about it for a second, “Nah, I don’t have anyone to watch my dog tonight, and I told Madej I’d be home at, like, nine.”

Suddenly, Shane burst into laughter, and Ryan snapped to look at him, immediately repeating his last sentence in his head. 

Oh, he had mentioned Madej. Whoops.

“You-,” Shane wheezed, “you talk like it’s your trophy wife and your some 1960’s office worker. You’re planning your work schedule around it!”

Ryan giggled, because yeah, it was a bit silly, but Ryan was returning the favor of protection by giving the demon steady company. Ryan would consider them friends.

“Hey, look, it left me starbursts! If it’s nice enough to do that for me, I’m gonna go home to keep it company!” Ryan tried to defend, already giggling as well, “My demon is like my other dog, ok? It’s great—Hey stop laughing, oh my god Shane, let me enjoy something, dude!”

They were both howling with laughter at this point, gaining a few fond glances from anyone else who was already here. It was an easy, warm, familiar morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting this all in one day because i wrote it all last week, yay!!


	3. Late Night Ends

By three, Ryan was feeling more comfortable than he had in any other supernatural episode. When alone while grabbing their usual camera, he had asked if Madej was here, and had gotten a knock in response. Ryan smiled as he found Shane again.

“What’s got you all chipper?” Shane asked at Ryan’s car as he was packing up to head to the old mansion. 

Ryan paused for a second, before deciding to roll with it, “Madej is here.”

“Well yes, I’m here, helping you pack up,” Shane said, easily picking up a playful tone and smile.

“No- Shane, you know who I mean,” Ryan said, smiling as well.

Shane hummed, “Cool, hope he likes our banter about weird historical events, possibly involving kings shooting people with spontaneous bows.”  
Ryan laughed as they got into the car, planning on meeting Matt and Adam at the house, and setting up a camera in the dashboard. 

“Alright, ready to roll Shane!” he called back, and a second later, Shane was driving them to the location while Ryan talked about its past, and Shane made another jab about the name. About half and hour later, and they were parked in front of the old, decrepit mansion. 

It looked roughly three stories tall, a few rooms wide, and relatively well kept. Ryan admired the architect, with the mix of faded gold and a velvety maroon decorating the house, along with some pale yellow accents. Ryan smiled and turned to Shane to mention it, but immediately realized something was wrong.

“Hey Shane-,” he started, only to stop once seeing the taller man.

His arms were held stiff by his sides, a white knuckle grip on his camera, as he stared directly at the house. His eyes were glazed over, almost looking black in the cloud-covered sunlight, but there was clearly a hint of hazel in there. His back was straight in comparison to his usual casual slouch, and Ryan could see his knees were slightly bent, just enough to be ready to run…somewhere. Shane almost looked ready to pounce forward. Ryan was unnerved.

“Shane?” he flinched a hand toward the man, just to tap his arm to get his attention, but Shane immediately snapped out of his stupor, and turned to Ryan.  
“Huh? Oh, yeah, what’s up?” Shane fell back into his usual posture, rubbing at his former death-grip hand. 

“You--,” Ryan made some vague hand gesture, “you were spacing but you looked like you were about to pounce on the house.”

Shane tilted his head, before smiling easily, “Oh yeah, just having another one of my day dreams where I’m a cheetah, don’t worry.”

Ryan chuckled, still slightly worried, and punched Shane in the arm, “Riiiight, well, Matt and Adam said they’d meet us after we did our own walk over, so let’s get started, they’ll probably be here in an hour.”

Shane nodded and started walking for the house, quite fast, even for his telephone pole legs. Ryan had to jog slightly before he caught up enough to reach the door first, pausing before opening it and bringing his camera up.

“Woah, ok this place seems a bit not good,” Ryan laughed a bit nervously, and Shane clapped him on the shoulder.

“A bit not good? This is The Demon House, shouldn’t you be running for the hills?” Ryan gave him an amused glare as he scanned around with his flashlight.

“I mean, its looks like a well-kept house, with just a smidge of terrifying energy,” while explaining, Ryan walked around one of the corners and came face to face with a tall staircase. He flinched back, right into Shane who grabbed his shoulders to keep Ryan close to his chest. Ryan leaned into it, something seeming all too familiar, before he stepped forward, out of the grip that easily let go. 

“Oooooh, the energies getting’ bad?” Shane joked, as if he hadn’t just protectively pulled Ryan to his chest.

“Y-yeah, dude, there is something wrong with this staircase,” he swallowed as he looked at it, “like, really wrong.”

“Well, how many demons did you say were reportedly in this house?” as Shane asked, he leaned against the doorframe right beside him.

“Uh,” counting them in his head, he quickly turned to face Shane, a natural instinct, “7?” 

As he said that, Shane’s eyes widened and he tackled Ryan to the ground, right as something flew over them, so fast Ryan almost didn’t catch it. It ducked around the corner they just came from, and then dashed out of sight. 

Shane pushed himself up, holding himself over Ryan, concern and anger in his eyes, “Are you ok?”

Ryan swallowed, and then coughed, lungs suddenly too full and too empty, adrenaline coming all in a single rush, knocking the wind out of him, “Y-yeah, what-what was that?”

Shane was looking around the corner, and glanced back down at Ryan at the question. He fell silent before a quick, and suspicious, “I-I don’t know, Ryan.”

They both climbed up, Shane back in that ready-to-pounce position, Ryan pulling out his phone as his mind supplemented a game plan for him. 

“I’ll text M-Matt and Adam, tell them not to come, while you grab our shit and then we’re leaving,” he was already texting their crew, and by the time he put his phone away, he expected Shane to be calling for him at the front of the house. Instead, Shane was still standing in between him and the door-frame, eyes looked glazed and black again. 

“Shane, let’s go,” Ryan was now more than slightly panicked, going to move past Shane to get their stuff, before an arm thrust out to keep him in place.

“They’re waiting,” was all he said, scanning the room’s they could see from their position.

“They- who? Shane what-,” Ryan stopped as Shane turned towards him, revealing his eyes were void black, his teeth even looking sharper than usual. 

“Sorry you didn’t like tropical,” was all Shane said, smiling weakly and looking so, so soft, even with the clearly demonic features as he tilted his head sympathetically. Ryan scanned Shane’s face one more time before it clicked.

“Oh,” it was whispered softly, Ryan still looking into Shane’s black-hole like eyes, “oh my God, you-,” great, now he was absolutely breathless, air was currently, and officially, a struggle. 

“Yeah,” was all Shane said back, smiling again, before turning back to what looked like entrances to empty rooms. “Anyway, here’s my much more logical plan considering my adrenaline level is highly dampened by my demonic heritage,” Ryan punched his arm, and Shane smiled again, “I’m going to talk to them, there’s 6 and they are all lower classes than me.”

“Lower classes…” Ryan repeated, hoping he didn’t sound too confused. 

“Yeah, as in, if they don’t listen, we’re still perfectly safe, but I’d rather not make the trip back “home” to deliver their souls,” most of the sentence made sense to Ryan so he just nodded as Shane walked forward.

“Alright, hey guys,” Shane greeted, smiling to show his fangs in what was pure charisma, like a comedian walking onto a stage. Ryan still almost laughed though, and Shane threw him a more genuine smile.

“Anyway, hi, hello, you all know how I am,” at that, there was a deep rumble in the house that slowly began and slowly died down.

“Well, yeah, what else would I be doing? Obviously I won’t just go back to the council,” another rumble.

Shane sighed, fangs suddenly looking more predatory, “Ok, I get it, your salty, but he’s the one that tried to take Ryan, and that’s totally your fault, you know what I’m like.” 

Ryan did not, indeed, know what Shane was like when he was on this “council” but he didn’t really think he wanted to know.

Suddenly, the floorboards under Ryan began to crack, and he immediately jumped off of them with a yelp. When he found safe ground again, he heard layers of different pitched chitters, none sounding anything like Shane’s bird like chirps. He found he quite hated other demons’ laughs. 

Shane glanced him over to see if he was ok, before turning back to the rooms, suddenly becoming blurry to Ryan’s eyes, and voice becoming so many pitches Ryan didn’t want to try and recognize any of them.

“Ok, see that’s what I’m talking about,” oh this was angry Shane. Oh that can’t be good. 

Shane took a few steps forward, the floor where he stepped suddenly burning and flaking, turning ash black the second he took his foot away. Shane himself was growing increasingly difficult to see, layers upon layers of what mimicked 3D reds and blues, some purple and yellow thrown in to disorient Ryan more. 

Shane’s head flicked, as if watching something run one direction, giving Ryan a view of his face.

It was still clearly Shane, and it was a stark reminder that this was the same Shane who got more hype over “The Umbrella Man” than he did actual solved murder cases. There were however some slight differences. 

His eyes were still black, but the amount of fangs in his mouth had seemed to double, and, hilariously enough, his ears even looked partially pointed. 

Ryan didn’t have time to even chuckle at that before Shane laughed, voice still sounding like some messed up audio file, “Oh you little shits, you absolute buffoons.”

Without taking his eyes away from where he’d turned to, he stuck out an arm and in the next second there was another distorted figure trying to claw Shane’s hand off of its neck.

“Oh cool, there you are, great,” Shane smiled, all teeth, and the demon’s legs started kicking a lot harder to struggle away from Shane. It began frantically whispering, but loud enough for Ryan to hear, voice possibly just impossibly raspy, and definitely in a language Ryan would never know.

Shane almost looked bored as he listened, and after more whispers, he simply dropped the creature, watching it scurry back before becoming invisible to Ryan again. But even in the split second before the thing was gone, Ryan distinctly saw a bight red hand print around its neck, similar to how the floorboards burned. 

“Ok,” Shane cleared his throat, effectively getting what Ryan could assume was everyone’s attention, “great, we’re leaving now, disrupt us and I’ll snitch on you to the reapers.” 

Ryan definitely felt the immediate temperature drop at the mention of “reapers” and was not at all eager to know what they were capable of if they made six separate demons that scared. 

Shane turned back to him, returning mostly back to normal, eyes still black, but human-looking otherwise. He smiled that smile and held out an arm, bowing slightly, as if Ryan was some high class lady and Shane was holding the door open for him. He chuckled a bit, returning to the front to grab their cameras, Shane close by as they finally left the house. Once in the car, Ryan unconsciously began to gush.

“You-,” he almost couldn’t find the right words. Ryan knew, even with all the 3D like haze, that the Shane he just saw was just so…beautiful doesn’t even reach the starting line. 

“I was amazing, trust me, I know,” Shane joked as he drove, clearly not fully understanding just how amazing he was.

“Yes- no, that doesn’t even begin to describe it, you-You were so…there. Is that a demon thing? Because all of my senses were trained on you or just so-so focused,” Ryan was really struggling here, but he thinks he got his point across with the way Shane’s shoulders puffed and he averted his eyes, before glancing at Ryan, and then training his eyes back to the mostly empty road.

“No,” he started, and Ryan’s heart stopped pumping for a second, “no, it’s not a demon thing.”

Ryan’s heart took a second to restart, before he puffed his own shoulders, smiling, “Good, may I also say your laugh is seriously the only truly adorable thing I’ve heard, in like, ever?”

Shane was burying his face in the collar of his button-up now, smiling, “Oh stop,” he groaned playfully.

Ryan scoffed, mock-offended, “Oh no, no, no, may I also mention that your spikey shark-ass teeth are fascinating. Because, yeah. And your eyes are, I think, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen with my lack-luster mortal perception.”

Shane was chittering slightly now, eyes still black, and with the street lights reflecting off of them, they really did look like black holes, with their colorful gravitational rings that pulled anything in. At this point, Ryan was willing walking in. 

“Oh don’t talk about yourself like that, you are, in fact, the most unique and stunning human I’ve seen in millennia’s, and you know I mean millennia.”

Ryan, so tired and goofy just smiled, leaning back with his hands behind his head, “Thanks, I know.”

After a second they both broke into giggles, Shane quickly snapping back up to the road. 

“Alright, I can smell your exhaustion, take a nap, I’ll take you to my place,” Shane said softly, flicking the radio off with the flick of a finger.

“Wait, wait can you actually smell emotions-“

“Sleep, Ryan.”

“Fine, thanks Shane, love you.”

There was a sharp inhale as Ryan got comfortable, before, “Love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's the end kids, hope it wasn't shit ;)

**Author's Note:**

> second ffffffIC!!  
> this time, its demon shane because i absolutely would devote my soul to that concept, and i think i already have.  
> anyway, i tried to be cool with the idea of demons in this (totally not listening to nightvale while writing this) but idk lmao


End file.
